San Francisco Mayor Vows to Remove City's Homeless by Super Bowl Weekend

[Recursion]

https://news.vice.com/article/san-francisco-mayor-vows-to-remove-citys-homeless-by-super-bowl-weekend

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has promised to sweep the city's downtown streets of its booming homeless population by the time the Super Bowl comes to town in early 2016.

"They are going to have to leave," Lee told local news station KPIX earlierthis week. "We'll give you an alternative, we are always going to be supportive, but you are going to have to leave the streets."

Lee has promised to move some of the homeless population into 500 housing units ahead of the big game. Homeless advocates in the city say that there are already many people living in those units and point out that the number is far too small to accommodate the needy.

The mayor said the police will be involved in the crackdown and are already getting the message out to those living on the streets this summer and fall. Though Lee has faced criticism from some homeless outreach groups, others in the city have cheered him for tackling a problem they see as getting worse.

[murielm99]

1. Maybe if a they did something about affordable housing in that city,

they could make a dent in homelessness. People can't afford to live there.

[jfern]

2. SF and affordable housing are completely opposites

Average rent for a 1 bedroom is $3500 a month. Following the rule that you need to spend no more than 30% of housing, that means you need to make $140k to rent a 1 bedroom apartment.

[Recursion]

3. They'll have to get over their dislike of tall buildings to make housing affordable

There's housing for about 800K people right now, and a lot more than 800K people want to live there. But until SFO residents get serious about allowing taller buildings, their housing prices are going to keep getting higher and higher.

[murielm99]

4. How would that work out with making things

earthquake safe?

[Recursion]

5. Japan manages it

There's fewer houses in SFO than there are people who want to live in the city. Either the city can allow more housing to be built, or they can find some way to limit who can live there, either by pricing out current residents, or controlling prices to keep current residents where they are (which keeps new people from being able to outbid them and move in). Both of those ways of limiting residents have problems associated with them.

[murielm99]

6. I have a family member who lives there.

He tells me his apartment is rent controlled. He is afraid to move. He does not think he can afford to live in the city if he moves.

[Recursion]

9. The average rent in Fremont is below $2000

Nobody wants to live in Fremont. That's why rents are lower. People love living in San Francisco. That's why rents are higher.

How do we decide who "deserves" to live in the city they want to and who doesn't?

[Warren DeMontague]

12. "Nobody wants to live in Fremont"

Truth.

[Recursion]

13. My wife's from there

Come to think of it, so many immigrant families live in the East Bay precisely because it's more affordable.

But, hey, it does have a good Japanese steakhouse by the mall.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. I'm not bagging on it, but it is true that no one seems to want to live there.

Really my hunch is that it's just the commuting through the East Bay that is the biggest negative. There are CIA enhanced interrogation procedures I'd rather undergo than being stuck on the 880 in late afternoon.

Last time I was actually down there, in Fremont, though, I think it was 110 degrees and whatever I was doing there all I remember of the afternoon was a dusty parking lot full of pickup trucks with Reagan/Bush stickers on them, so that ought to give you an idea of the time window.

I'm sure it's way more civilized, now. This was easily 25-30 years ago.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Okay, and assuming "affordable housing" comes to SF, it wont be scooped up by the homeless.

Rather, it will first be taken by half a million "poor" people who dont make the 100K+ required to actually live in San Francisco now, and instead commute to their jobs there from places like Gilroy.

[Recursion]

8. Yup. So build another half million units

If you want affordable housing you have to have roughly as many units as you have people who want to live in the city. There's not another way.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. That's not going to happen in San Francisco.

I mean, leaving aside the nervousness- right or wrong- of people in the area around the idea of taller buildings due to seismic reasons, it's simply not politically tenable in san francisco.

Any more than it would be politically tenable in marin to fill the headlands with high-rises, which would be aesthetically and evironmentally atrocious but at least there's physical space, there.

The simple reality is that San Francisco is at the tip of a small peninsula of very desirable real estate, and like Manhattan it will remain a super expensive place to live. C'est La Vie.

[Recursion]

11. I agree, which is why I don't think SFO can ever be affordable

Short of it becoming a less desirable place to live, eg by crime rates returning to their '80s and early '90s levels.

Note that when crime levels were much higher, poor people could afford to live there. The rich people all fled to the suburbs (and were castigated for that). Now the rich people are moving back and are being castigated for it.

That said, suburbs were originally for people too poor to afford to live in the city. We may be going back to that.

As long as rich people want to live there, it's going to be an expensive city to live in.

[Chuuku Davis]

14. Is $150K rich?

Well off here in Arkansas
Not in SF

[Recursion]

15. It's twice the median household income in the city of San Francisco

So, yeah, I'd consider it "rich".

[AngryAmish]

16. Someday a real rain will come..

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. They did it in Atlanta before the Olympics in 1996

ATLANTA - Local officials want to help rid the city of crime and homeless people before the Olympics with stricter loitering laws and one-way bus tickets out of town.

Fulton County is paying the bill for one-way bus tickets for the homeless as long as the recipient promises never to return and can prove he has a family or job waiting at his destination, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday.

[davidpdx]

19. Technically the game isn't even in SF

It's in Santa Clara where Levi Stadium is.

[chalmers]

20. Once again Star Trek prdicts the future

And this episode takes place in San Francisco

Sanctuary districts were originally established as places of sanctuary for those without jobs or homes. People with a criminal record were not allowed. In the beginning many people entered the districts voluntarily because of the promise that the administration would help them get jobs so they can find a way out of their destitution. Despite the benevolent intent, however, conditions inside the camps quickly degenerated to the point where by 2024 overcrowding was a pervasive problem throughout the Districts. More people were taken to Sanctuaries than buildings could accommodate, so many of them were sleeping on the streets, often on sidewalks or in tents or cardboard boxes. The government had also begun to forcefully locate people there, including people with mental health problems, or "dims", who could not afford health care services as well as the financially destitute. Laws prohibiting sleeping on the streets were further used to justify the forceful relocation of residents to the Sanctuaries.

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District

[Rex]

21. Good idea, push harder to make the world a horrible place to live in for the most vulnerable.

San Fran...how sad...